I shun father and mother and wife and brother when my genius calls me. I would write on the lintels of the door-post, Whim. I hope that it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation.
Character is that which can do without success.
The masses have no habit of self-reliance or original action.
The imagination and the senses cannot be gratified at the same time.
The virtue of books is to be readable.
We see young men who owe us a new world, so readily and lavishly they promise, but they never acquit the debt; they die young anddodge the account: or if they live, they lose themselves in the crowd.